An Explanation
by Opal Roseblossom
Summary: And still she cannot rid him from her mind. His accusations, his words over the years, they are all echoed back at her." A short series of dark vignettes based on the relationship between Opal and her father.


An Explanation 

**Warning: This fic is T for darkness. There's implied statutory rape and incest. Nothing graphic, just thought you should know. **

**I**  
Her father reaches his hand out to her. She shudders and scuttles away.  
"Opal," he says, and moves closer towards her, "you're alright. I didn't hurt you _that _much. This wouldn't have happened if you had just listened to Daddy."  
He approaches her, she is backed up against the wall. His hand reaches out and strokes her cheek. She flinches.  
His eyes burn with rage, "You know that you aren't allowed in Daddy's study. Next time be good."  
She cautiously raises her eyes to him; his thumb traces the purple bruise around the one of them. She jerks her face away.  
He gathers her up in his arms and she accepts the embrace stiffly. A whimper escapes her mouth. She shuts her eyes; she is all too familiar with what is to come.  
His mouth brushes the top of her head and she tries to suppress her gag. His large hands encompass her body.  
She doesn't cry, she never cries. It just makes him angry. But her eyes burn with the desire to shed tears. She wants to fight him, to run away, but it won't do any good. He is bigger, stronger, and faster.  
Instead she calculates. Her mind drifts from her body, her head swims with numbers.  
She recedes into the swirl of the Fibonacci, 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21... The figures shield her from his invasive mass  
She drowns out any pain, she ignores the feeling of his skin on hers.  
6765, 10946, 17711, she is elsewhere. She is part of a seashell, part of grain, part of a sunflower.  
She calculates and calculates, anything to escape from this horrid fate. The hatred she feels for him burns her up.  
She is aware that she cannot hide forever.

**II**

She watches the flames with morbid fascination. She is horrified, but somehow unsurprised. He shoves page after page of her blueprints into the recycler, the fire devours them cheerfully.

"Useless," he says, "what a pointless skill for a female, I told you not to take that class." His voice is hoarse with fury, he rips the paper violently.

She watches one of the sheets burn. The professor's comments had made her glow with pride earlier today. She now reads the untidy scrawl of _revolutionary _with a mixture of embarrassment and confusion. The compliment is transformed into ashes, and her heart aches as she watches it go.

He grabs her prototype and prepares to throw it in.

"No!" She cries out, and tries to grab it from him. They had offered her money for it, another electronics company wanted to reproduce it. She hangs on to his arm to prevent him from breaking her creation.

He shakes her off, throwing her onto the ground. It is tossed into the machine with a resounding crack. The device is melted into a mass of plastic and metal.

"Next time, don't waste your time," he says, "leave it to the males." Something flits across his eyes. For a moment she thinks that it is fear, or maybe even jealousy. But the emotion is gone, and his face is, once again, a hard mask. He seems as if he wishes to kick her. Instead he just gives her another scornful look and says; "Remember your place in this world."

He leaves her on the ground, astonished and bewildered.

**III**  
She is in absolute shock.  
It had been so simple, a quick transaction, a word with the press. She can hardly believe it.  
She feels relieved, elevated, and successful. But with it all there is a disappointment. How could it have been so easy?  
The entire time she had thought that her goal was impossible. She feels as if she has just stolen fire from the gods. And yet she has not been punished. Her stomach knots, she needs some sort of catharsis. This can't be it. This can't be all there is. After all of her years of suffering it shouldn't have been so effortless. She was cheated, she thinks, out of a proper climax.  
He had been the most powerful man she ever knew. She hadn't thought that a simple term like "bankrupt" could destroy him so thoroughly.  
This invincible figure that had tormented her for so long was vanquished. He had been the smartest, cleverest, most commanding person on the earth.  
Now she is.  
And still she cannot rid him from her mind. His accusations, his words over the years, they are echoed back at her.  
She thinks that he will always be there, omnipotent and omniscient, watching her and judging her. Well, he can observe all he wants now. She's proven it. She's proven that she's the best.

**IV**  
Sometimes she thinks that she ought to thank him. He did, after all, make her who she was, albeit reluctantly. Had he not forbidden her to participate in "men's work" she would not have been half so determined. Had he not been so cruel, she would never have succeeded in annihilating him.  
Perhaps he is the reason that she is so successful. She is consistently amazed by the capacity of her own brain. Would she be as intelligent as she was if she had not wanted to impress him so badly?  
She is aware that he rots away in a mental asylum. She has never visited him. She thinks that maybe she should. He's a beautiful concept, really. His brutality served to mold her into what she is now. He exhausted himself trying to constrain her. When she was finally done, finally perfect, he was used up. His entire being had been spent making her. Now he sits, mumbling to himself and crying, having served his purpose in life.  
So she should probably be grateful. The power that she holds over the fairy world fascinates her. Her ability to plot and manipulate, stemmed from years of learning to please a man who always held all of the cards, was flawless. She occasionally decides that she should hold a bit of appreciation.  
But then she remembers the feel of his fist hitting her face. She feels the shame in the pit of her belly as she recalls his blatant exploitation of her helplessness. She recollects the pain and the _wrongness _of it all. She speculates that, no, if anything she is who she is in spite of him. She was just meant to be this way; he had nothing to do with it. She is self-made.  
Or she thinks she is. She's never entirely sure.

**V **

Her friends tell her that she is drunk with power. They note that she is altogether too ruthless in her business ventures.

It annoys her. Don't they see? She needs more! She isn't strong enough yet. She wants to be bigger, larger than life.

People often remark that she is always working. She has to. She must keep going because she needs to get ahead. They all say that she doesn't have much competition. Only one person can even come close to her sales, that damn centaur who works for the LEP.

It's not about making a living, it's not about having a lot of money. They don't seem to understand that. She will not be satisfied with riches. She wants to be almighty, all-powerful. She needs to grow.

A person who knew her really well might observe that she appears to be running from something.

Of course, there are no people who know her really well.

She is seen as somewhat eccentric, she engages in odd ventures. She hires henchmen, does suspicious deals with shady partners. And there was that business with the lemur brain fluid...

They think the harshest things about her. They don't seem to get it. It isn't enough.

If she slows down, if she stops, then the memories will catch up with her.

She can't think of it. She needs to get over it.

And the only way for her to do that is to become bigger. She needs more power.

She _is_ running. And she hopes to god that no one will get in her way.

**VI **

His words pierce her right through the heart. She feels the shame of betrayal, her face goes white with disbelief.

She remembers her foolish words earlier, _Tell me about the future._

As if her future could be any different than her past.

She is insulted; she can't grasp the fact that she did not see this coming.  
Unbidden, the words of her father drift back to her. She remembers him scaring away her first boyfriend; his direct cruelty had sent the boy running for the door. She had been angry, she yelled at her father and idiotically proclaimed that she loved the elf. She had said that even he couldn't come between their love.  
He had told her the truth. "You expect him to come back after you, maybe throwing stones at your window, desperate to be with you despite your father's disapproval. You have all of these silly romantic images of men. They are almost all alike. The only difference between them is their level of intelligence and their station in life. The only man you can trust is me. I will always be there with you. These other ones are useless, they want to own you, I already own you."  
In a way he had been right. He was the most trustworthy. He didn't pretend to be kind, he didn't try to fool her into believing he cared. He was the harsh reality that she had always tried to avoid.  
She keens in anger as she sits in a pool of her own failure. Why must he always have been right? She had never seen that boyfriend again. Cudgeon stabbed her in the back like the rest of them.  
She had thought him a kindred spirit. He was pitiless and vengeful, so much like herself. They were both fighting for power in an unjust world. She thought that he had understood her. But, as her father said, he was the same as the rest of them.  
Luckily she never _really_ believes that anyone is dependable. She has a back up plan, as she always does.  
She just wishes that for once he had been wrong.

**VII**  
"Don't look directly at me, it's bad for my skin."  
_Because I'm perfect_, she thinks, _no matter what you said, Dad_. _  
I beat you, so now you can get out of my head. I beat you, who always seemed so above it al,. you, who always seemed so big and out of reach. You, who was always stronger than I was.  
So therefore, I must be perfect, because perfection is the only possible explanation for your downfall._  
She laughs hysterically. _You can stop telling me that I'm a horrible child. You can stop repeating it over and over again. I don't need a reminder. I don't need to replay those words you said over fifty years ago. I don't need to hear that I'm worthless. Because I'm not, I am beyond perfect. So you can stop now.  
I am perfect, I am perfect, I am perfect. Listen to it! Everyone knows it! I will rule the world.  
Everyone can tell when they look at me, my beautiful eyes, my flawless skin, my flowing hair. I am so intelligent that I have brought Haven to its knees. Who's the leader now? Who is in charge? Not you any more, Daddy. It's me, the earth is mine. You have no power over me.  
I don't know why I keep hearing your voice. The taunts are meaningless. Haven't I proved you wrong? I am so perfect that others do not even deserve to look at me.  
_And then, from the back of her mind, comes that constant nagging voice. That voice that she can never shut up. _His _voice.  
_You're just afraid that if they look at you, they'll see how horrible you truly are._

**AN: Opalness vignettes brought on by sickness. I think that it's a side effect of my cold. Any ickiness, just blame on that. Constructive criticism is welcome, because this cannot be grammatically sound at all. And I'm pretty sure the formatting is screwed. I'll fix it when I get less sick. I feel like I just write about Opal a little too much. But I feel like there's more to her character... and I was bored. **

**Reviews would just make my day. :D**

**-Opal**

**P.S. Does anyone have a better idea for a title?**


End file.
